Published 7:00 pm, Saturday, October 12, 2002

The survey, conducted by the Vox Populi polling institute for Brasilia's Correio Braziliense newspaper, shows the Workers' Party candidate with 66.5 percent support of respondents. Government-backed candidate Jose Serra had the support of 33.5 percent.

The Vox Populi poll interviewed 2,502 registered voters in 155 cities across the country between Oct. 10-11. The margin of error was plus or minus 2 percentage points.

"There are still two weeks to go before the runoff election and we cannot categorically state that Silva will win," Marcos Coimbra, the director of the Vox Populi institute told the newspaper. "However, it will be hard for this trend to change course."

The survey also showed that 44 percent said they would not vote for Serra, while 22 percent said the same of Silva.

On Saturday the Datafolha polling institute released a survey showing Silva with 64 percent, compared to 36 percent for Serra. Its margin of error was 2 percentage points.

In last Sunday's first round of the elections, Silva received 46.4 percent of the valid votes. Serra won 23.2 percent.

The prospect of Silva governing Latin America's largest country has aggravated market jitters at a time of high global risk aversion.

The local currency, the real, is in a downward spiral which some analysts fear may force the government to introduce capital controls, possibly before the president-elect takes office in January. To date, the currency has shed about 40 percent of its value.